Spring 2019 - Issue 53

current issue cover image

The Spring 2019 issue includes the following features. You can purchase this magazine from our online Shop.

You can read the articles in this and all other NarrowBoat issues online by becoming a NarrowBoat subscriber.

Front Cover: On a misty spring day Gordon Hall Waddington’s motor Seagull is loaded with aluminium and being worked single handed. She was built by W. J. Yarwood & Sons Ltd at Northwich for carriers W.H. Cowburn & Cowpar Ltd of Manchester in January 1935. Her hull was all steel with a wooden cabin and she was fitted with a long cylindrical tank to carry carbon disulphide to Coventry and Wolverhampton.

Gordon Hall Waddington featured image

Famous Fleets

Gordon Hall Waddington

Famous fleets Chris M. Jones and Euan Corrie look at the activities of a north-western narrowboat carrier of the 1950s

View an excerpt.

Boating to Braunston  featured image

Working the Waterways

Boating to Braunston

Located at the junction of the Grand Union and Oxford canals, Braunston thrived on its canal trade for over 150 years. Chris M. Jones looks back

View an excerpt.

Keels at Keadby  featured image

A Broader Outlook

Keels at Keadby

A broader outlook Chris M. Jones studies early 20th-century images showing traffic on the Sheffield & South Yorkshire Navigation and River Trent at Keadby

View an excerpt.

Blue Line at Marsworth   featured image

Picturing the Past

Blue Line at Marsworth

Two evocative colour images from Jack Parkinson’s collection show canal-carrying on the Grand Union in the mid-‘60s

View an excerpt.

Britain at Work featured image

Working the Waterways

Britain at Work

Chris M. Jones explores the details of waterway photographs published in an early 20th-century book

View an excerpt.

Charles Hadfield and the World Canals Collection featured image

From the Archives

Charles Hadfield and the World Canals Collection

Joseph Boughey examines the public archives of well-known canal historian Charles Hadfield

View an excerpt.

Isabella Salt's Chest featured image

Canal Curios

Isabella Salt's Chest

A decorative boatwoman’s box has museum staff scratching their heads. SARAH HENSHAW finds out more

View an excerpt.

The Preston Family of Middlewich featured image

Tracing Family History

The Preston Family of Middlewich

Mary Kelly explores her family’s long involvement with inland boating in the North West

View an excerpt.

Settle and Ingleton featured image

Canals That Never Were

Settle and Ingleton

Richard Dean describes canal proposals in the Craven area of Yorkshire

View an excerpt.

Single Horse-boating on the Grand Junction featured image

Picturing the Past

Single Horse-boating on the Grand Junction

Two images taken before WWI provide a glimpse into an age when towing a single loaded boat by horse from Brentford to Birmingham was all in a day’s work for experienced boaters

View an excerpt.